Radio communication systems, for example cellular communication systems, employ various methods to control interference caused by simultaneously communicating users. Finite radio resources may be managed so that individual users are allocated a subset of the total available resources to provide simultaneous multiple user access. The resource subsets allocated to different users may be separated from each other by separating them in frequency, which is known as frequency division multiple access or FDMA. They may also be separated in the time domain, which is known as time division multiple access or TDMA. They may also be separated using spreading codes, which technique is known as code division multiple access or CDMA. They may also be separated using orthogonal subcarriers, which is known as OFDMA. In systems permitting directional transmission radio resources may also be partitioned in the space domain, which is known as space division multiple access or SDMA. Combinations of techniques are employed, for example a spreading code or frequency band may be time-sliced between a plurality of users.
Besides avoiding interference by partitioning radio resources, performance of radio communication systems may be improved by introducing interference cancellation, IC, techniques. An IC receiver demodulates at least one interfering signal in addition to the signal of interest, for the purpose of cancelling the interfering signal from the signal of interest to improve a signal-to-noise ratio.